Folktales review – taking on tyranny of social media as teens learn to live like hunter-gatherers

In this documentary, high schoolers camp out in subzero temperatures, making their own fires and driving sledges in the wild The Pasvik Folk high school in remote northern Norway teaches teenagers to grow as young adults and escape the pressures of toxic social media by challenging them to get back in touch with their “stone age brain” and live like hunter-gatherers in the snowy wild. This is the subject of a documentary from Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady. Over winter months of almost continuous darkness, the teens cleanse themselves with tasks such as camping out in subzero weather, making their own fires and driving sledges with huskies. Prior to all this of course is presumably a solemn promise to do without their phones, tablets and laptops, although there are no scenes of the kids actually having to surrender these gadgets (this isn’t rehab, after all). They have to swim in icy water; and they make it look like fun. What doesn’t look like fun is the camping out and there is one t...

Old Man review – wilderness horror as cranky codger faces off with mysterious hiker

Lucky McKee’s psychological horror starring Stephen Lang feels inauthentic and flat

Here is an unexceptional psychological horror from director Lucky McKee that feels dated and clunky, with some fairly ropey acting – or maybe that is down to the shaky lines put into the actors’ mouths. It only comes alive after a freaky plot twist at the end, but even that left the hairs on the back of my neck unprickled, the carpet under my feet unpulled.

Stephen Lang plays a cranky codger known only as Old Man who lives in the remote Smoky Mountains wilderness. The set design of his wooden cabin is distractingly inauthentic; it’s like an Ikea store display that has been done up in hicksville chic. Old Man has woken up in a filthy temper; first his dog, Rascal, pees on the floor, and then there is a knock at the door. Old Man shoves his shotgun into the face of the stranger standing outside. “Do as I say, or you’ll end up like her,” he growls, jabbing the gun at a stuffed wildcat on the wall.

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